Inspired by my new blue dress

This past weekend I bought a simple but lovely blue dress from Target. On Monday I wore this dress going to training off-site from my regular workplace. Why not go the full package and wow them? Yes, my nails were going to match the jacquard design you can not quite see in the below picture.

Target

As my base colour I chose to use Orly Royal Navy. I thought that Royal Navy would be a lot lighter than the blue in the dress but that I needed a lighter colour when stamping black over the top. The added blue shimmer would help give a little extra and define the design.

After going through quite a number of plates and using different black polishes, I ended up stamping with Konad Black. I really did not want to use Konad Black because it is such a pain to clean up. Even then, I had trouble with the stamping. To combat this, I had to suffer for my nails and turn both the air conditioning and the fan off. This enabled me to stamp properly but I only had time to stamp an accent on my middle finger. A Bundle Monster image plate was used. I know I tried both BM 20 and BM 21 but I am not sure which one I used in the end as both plates have a similar design on them.

On my ring finger I placed a black bow to match the ribbon belt on my dress.  Manicure complete. It drew some admirers too. That is always a sign of a job well done.

Happy Birthday January

I know I missed out on December's birthday post. I did have a plan for it and that did not involve the December floral emblem of holly. There will be another December to post in since the world did not end. ;)

Many of you would know that the birth stone for January is the garnet. The rhinestone flowers I used in this manicure represent garnet. I know that most people picture garnet as a different shade of red but that was the best red I had in my wheel of blossoms. What you may not know is that the Chinese plum (aka Japanese apricot) is the January floral emblem in China. Plum blossoms are a common oriental motif that I like so I thought I would bring it back to the blog after the last appearance in Spring.

My base colour is a-England Dragon. Two coats were applied but the beauty could not be appreciated when I first took pictures as it was overcast. I am not going to complain because the coolness the weather has brought is a welcome relief from the high temperatures we have had lately. The sun did peep out for a few moments after I had applied some cuticle oil. A dash was made to take at least one picture to show the scattered holographic loveliness that is Dragon.

Using Konad plate M66 I stamped my favourite stone fruit blossom image in China Glaze Cherish. I did consider a red for the stamping but I decided for the chrome of Cherish instead. Seche Vite was applied over the stamping. What is unusual is that I stamped directly on the dry base colour. This colour dried satisfactorily fast to enable me to stamp without waiting hours for the firmness required.

On each fully stamped blossom a rhinestone was placed on the wet Seche Vite. That brings us to the end result. I think the manicure turned out well but the red and green could have a Christmas vibe to it. Still, I like it and I hope those who celebrate their birthday in January do as well.

June Roses - A prickly profile picture

I thought I should have a profile picture for my blog. In my opinion with me being MsPrickle the best solution was a thorny one. To be more precise, I will make roses to symbolise my thorns.

For this purpose I had to buy myself a bunch of roses to take the pictures with. It's a tough life but one way to get flowers.

This was the second attempt to get the right look for the manicure. I first used Natio Brandy as a base for OPI Fit for a Queensland. It would be perfect with the pink shimmer and white base and stamped with Konad Dark Red. As mentioned in my Natio Brandy post, I ruined the manicure before I could stamp it. Too many layers to dry!

For my second attempt, I used essie Pearly White and stamped with Konad Dark Red. In my opinion, Konad Dark Red is the perfect match for the red roses. Pearly White did not dry until after I stamped it. I used Seche Vite before stamping and this still did not make the manicure firm for early stamping. The end result is not too bad but would be better if the base was pearly and smooth. These must be those bumpy freshwater pearls. After allowing the stamping to dry a little so that it would not smear, I topped with more Seche Vite. The roses are from BM-323.

I could have left this post for a year and used it for celebrating June birthdays. Pearl is the birthstone for June and rose is the flower. Another manicure will have to be created when we get to June.

Welcome Spring! Fantasy Fire Plum Blossoms.

After seeing Konad M66 for the first time I knew I had to get it. Just for the blossoms alone I had to get it. I love cherry blossoms/sakura as a motif.

Since it is now September and not Awesome Aussie August, I can now show the much coveted Max Factor Fantasy Fire that I was able to procure. In Australia? Wow! Hurray!

You will have seen many swatches of Fantasy Fire that are much more worthy than mine would be. So I thought I would fill this post with pictures of Fantasy Fire stamped with the cherry blossoms from Konad M66. I used a single coat of base colour Rimmel Blue My Mind with two coats of Fantasy Fire. My stamping polish was Konad Special White Pearl.

This tree is full of blossoms to herald in the spring. It is not a cherry tree but a plum tree. See that blue sky in the background. Magnificent. I am not keen on taking pictures in the early morning light which is when these were taken. The shadows are too long at that time of day.

I had a compliment from a client when I wore this to work. That is always a sign of a good job done. Although it most likely has something to do with a pretty special polish like Fantasy Fire.

Awesome Aussie August: Farewell Winter - Ozotic 509

Today is officially the last day of Winter here in the Southern Hemisphere. How I wish that this means that the first of September would be magically warm to usher in Spring. It will most likely continue being chilly on and off for a while yet.

For my base I used three coats of Ozotic 509. Of course the sun hid for the day since I used a holographic polish. I had to resort to taking my pictures in the house.

So I took a picture in the kitchen with the flash...

In the bathroom directly under the heat light.

I had always planned on using Ozotic 509 for the base of a Winter manicure. Originally I was going to stamp with my spectraflaired blue holographic franken. I decided against it because I thought that might be too holographic. Is there any such thing? Konad Dark Blue was used to provide a contrast between the holographic awesomeness and the stamping.

The snowflake design is from Bundle Monster's image plate BM-323. This seems to be one of my favourite plates because it has so many good designs. I did try stamping with a contrast of a dark silver. With the light hitting the holographic goodness on my nails you can not notice the mess that I made on my thumb. I stamped with Nails Inc. Cleopatra's Kiss over the top of my Konad Dark Blue. On my ring finger I stamped first with Cleopatra's Kiss and then with Konad Dark Blue. You can not see it unless you look hard and up very close on my ring finger.

Last of all I took a picture in the shade so you can see the design and some of the mess I made on my thumb with my over-stamping. Excuse the shoddy clean up. I did not intend on keeping this manicure on when I had finished because of the thumb nail and the chipping on my right hand.

Goodbye Winter and hello Spring. Sorry Winter, I am not sad to see you go!

Dragon's Demise - An eye shadow franken

The eye shadow that I used in my tutorial/guide for making eye shadow nail polish was Dragon's Blood from Fyrinnae. I used all of the pigment I had to make my 5 ml bottle for the opacity and pigmentation that I wanted. The shadow is a dark red with gold and magenta shimmer. Below is a picture (on my shocking Winter grass) of the polish next to the eye shadow.

When I used the polish it dried to a brownish red colour. It reminded me of blood, dried blood. This is why I thought I would name this Dragon's Demise.

Inspired by a bunch of roses, I stamped with Konad White and Bundle Monster image plate BM-323 with the rose image.

Awesome Aussie August: Australian Flag over Australian Made Polish.

Since the Olympics are on, I thought I had better show some Australian pride and have an Australian Flag manicure. Why not? It's the perfect excuse to give the Konad Australian themed plate some work.

This manicure is done with Satin Nail Enamel 21. I have only seen this brand at one local chemist and no where else. I am not sure how easy it is to get. You can not complain about price as it sells for $2.50 a bottle. Satin also manufactures other cosmetics such as blush, lipstick etc. When I was last in the chemist there was a display promoting buy two and get one free.

Oh how unexpectedly I liked Satin 21. I was worried when I did the first coat as it was very streaky and thin looking. When I had the second coat on, all I could do was admire the lovely navy with shimmer.

I used the ICNA Konad Australian plate for the flag and I <3 AUS. This was stamped in Konad White Pearl for both images. A fine brush was used to paint in Konad Dark Red for the Union Jack part of the flag. It looks good from a distance but close up... blech. I have to admit that I was not planning on keeping this on. After I had done it, I decided that I would keep it. That blue is so very nice.

Mr R wanted to help me out with something for me to hold for the picture. I had a koala but it was too large to get my hand around. He brought out his iPod with an Australian flag to hold. Sadly it was too large for me to hold easily too. We did get a picture.

Happy Birthday July!

A few special people I know celebrate their birthdays in July. I thought I would honour that with a manicure featuring red for the birthstone of July, ruby.

The glowing ruby shall adorn,
Those who in July are born;
Then they'll be exempt and free
From love's doubts and anxiety.

- From a Tiffany and Co pamphlet (1870)

I was going to use China Glaze's Ruby Pumps. Instead I used a red spectraflair franken christened Revhead Rainbow. The base colour is Rimmel Lasting Finish Double Decker Red. Surprisingly, I was able to wear this for three days before I had to remove it. That had to be some kind of record for me. And yes, this polish is much more holographic in real life.

As I did not have time to do anything too fancy, I stamped two images on my ring and middle fingers of each hand. Yes, I have fallen in love with using Nails Inc Cleopatra's Kiss. The balloon image is from the Australian themed Konad plate from ICNA. When stamping, I made sure that the "Happy Holidays" part was removed from my stamper. The gift icon was from Bundle Monster's BM-205.

Aussie Aussie Aussie!

No! No! No! :(

When I received the ICNA A1 Australia Konad image plate, I was looking forward to using some of the designs on it. Generally I find that Konad's images are too large for most of my nails so I don't bother buying them. I bought the Christmas Konad image plate and gave it away to someone else for a Christmas gift when I saw that there was no way I could comfortably fit the icons onto my nails. This might give you an idea of the size of my nails.

And the back of this plate. I had already used the plate and some nail polish remover has obviously made a ring of wetness on the back.

The problem I had was not with this plate. No, it was with the polish I chose to try the first trial of images out with. I knew that I would most likely have to do more than one manicure to be able to enjoy the designs. I used Ulta3 Frog Prince and Ulta3 Honolulu. I bought both of these from my local Woolworths supermarket. More Nail Polish has an Ulta3 Colour Guide. Be warned, the link is VERY image heavy and takes a while to open.

Frog Prince was not too bad. I expected it to be sheer from the pictures I had seen on More Nail Polish but it was opaque in two coats. I bought Frog Prince because I wanted a middle of the range green because I have dreams of rainbows on my nails.

Honolulu is a bright yellow that I let the children choose when we were shopping. I thought it would do for a good creme yellow for the above rainbows. Originally I had intended on getting China Glaze Happy Go Lucky for my yellow creme. It looks as though someone had been opening it before I bought it. It was gluggy and did not apply well. An hour afterwards it still had not dried and had crinkled underneath my Essie Good to Go. I like to let my layers dry at least five minutes between each coat and that usually works well. Maybe I might use Seche Restore to thin it and that might improve the dry time and formula.

I used Konad special polishes for the stamping. On my thumb is the swan in black for the Black Swans of Western Australia. My middle "swear" finger has a moss green koala and on my ring finger is an indistinct yellow kangaroo.Topping these with Seche Vite helped with the crinkle problem.

Nail Mail - Konad supplies

My parcel delivery man is very kind. Even when the items are addressed to my home address, he will bring them to my workplace for me when I am at my part-time job. It is something of a running joke with my workmates about my expensive nail obsession with the frequent arrival of new nail goodies.

This parcel was no exception to the comments but I was able to show one of my colleagues about nail art stamping. Here is a picture of my new Konad supplies. Since it has been gloomy and rainy, it has not helped with trying to get decent pictures.

The 5 ml Konad special polishes arrived in these cute Konad bags. On the back they have "Easy Instructions" and diagrams of how you stamp.

My order was a special deal where you get select any ten 5 ml special polishes and receive a Konad 11 ml clear top coat from ICNA - International Creative Nail Art. Also available there is an exclusive Konad image plate with an Australian theme. It costs $13.98 which is expensive for an image plate but I wanted to own this little bit of Australiana.

I am very happy with the speed of my order. I ordered on Monday with their flat rate $4.95 shipping and they posted it Express Post. I live in a rural area outside of the Express Post network and it arrived on Thursday. It surprised me because I was not expecting it to arrive until the next week at least. Generally mail takes about a week or more to reach me from Western Australia. Posting my order via Express Post would have assisted in getting it here quickly.